Chatham Breach, Massachusetts

The town of Chatham has transformed its coastal perimeter to defend against the erosion resulting from a 1987 storm, when the natural sand spit protecting Chatham from the waves, tides, and littoral drift of the Atlantic was suddenly and permanently breached. Since the last glacial bulldozer formed the sandy berm known as Cape Cod, the general geodynamic trend has been for the fragile Cape to disappear, slowly dissolved by the sea. The Chatham shoreline is testament to the resolve of Cape residents to slow the roughly 140-year cycle of the barrier beach system eroding and then reforming.